#303 - Still In This Thing

Bit of a rough start to the day.

My alarm went off at seven AM because I forgot to shut it off. Then at nine thirty it went off again and both Robyn and I were in a deep sleep. We both were tired. Robyn never sleeps in during the week. I, of course, had the excuse of staying up until two thirty in the morning working on my word quota like a chump.

If I had the time to be upset with myself, I would self flatulate. But nobody got time for that. I headed straight to my home studio desk and fired up the PC then made all the connections to the studio mainframe. There were a bunch of messages as per usual, most of them nonsense. One was not.

One of the art directors was calling all the paintings we had in for approval, so all approvals came to a complete stop. I had a painting of my own to finish, so I was happy to use the time to work on that. It will likely mean we will have to revise a large section to the show before moving forward and that will mean we will have to have a large all team meeting to discuss how to move forward. All in all, it means there isn’t much for me to do once I’ve finished my painting.

So, I took the opportunity to write for fifteen minutes. At least I can reduce the amount od stress that I am under this week by just a little. I am hoping to steal a few more moments like this throughout the day if possible. In just ten minutes I was able to get almost three hundred of the 5800 words I’ll need to complete today. Every Second Counts.

That was sign posted above one of the chef’s restaurants on the tv show The Bear. It seems apropos now.

But it’s coming up on noon, and I really need to get my body moving. I could get a lot of writing done in that hour, but I feel my body needs to get physical. And that actually might help with my writing stamina tonight. One thing is for sure, I need to start writing directly after work, because tomorrow I have to get up at seven and head into the studio.

Just as we were getting ready to leave to take a walk in the park, my supervisors sent me a message asking to meet at one thirty. This meant we might not be back in time to make the meeting, so we switched with great trepidation to our walk around the neighborhood which we know from past experience takes less than an hour.

My one thing to look forward to today was the walk in the park. And boy did we feel it’s absence while we were out there. The sun beat down on us most of the time and there were only scant amounts of shade. A breeze blew so infrequently that it may have as well been absent. Every little scrap of shade was cherished. In the park we would have been sheltered by the tree canopy and the heat would have been further eased by a constant cool breeze.

Even so, my body rejoiced in the exercise and the extra sweat produced felt more like a cleansing. I don’t even remember the last time I got to go to the park for a walk. And that’s a damn shame because I really do love it there.

To make matters even more unpleasant, there were construction crews all throughout the streets carving up tarmac and concrete curbs. There were boiling machines filled with fresh tar and general dirtiness to the air and street. With the heat and the humidity, it felt even more oppressive to be out there.

But we trudged on happily, knowing this was likely going to be the best part of our day.

I returned to the house in a sweaty mess, grabbed a towel to dry myself off and grabbed a cold perrier from the fridge. We’d returned with plenty of time to make my meeting.

The lack of sleep was just starting to hit me, so I went downstairs to grab a little food. I didn’t want to be hangry in the meeting. I had a a few minutes before it started, so I painted for few minutes until the Teams app started ringing.

The meeting was not full of good news. In fact, I got a bit testy after hearing the news. The art director wanted changes to our paintings, which is normal, but the changes we wanted went against the key painting he himself had given us. This meant that after all the approval processes for the designs, he was making changes after we went into production on the show. We are used to fixing our mistakes, but to have changes that go against the key is a pain. Instead of the design team doing their job properly, we now have to change multiple paintings.

Like I said, a real pain in the ass.

I spoke for some accountability from the design team and for someone to check their work. Because on a show with a one week turn around, we can’t afford these kinds of last-minute changes. If they come from the client, that is one thing, but from our own team it is inexcusable.

After receiving our new marching orders, and fuming for a few minutes, I started to feel awful. I went into our room, popped an Advil and lay on the bed for half an hour with my eyes closed. This feeling was likely caused by the lack of sleep and the increased stress. This week was supposed to be an easy one workwise and should have been a nice easy transition into our vacation. Instead, it’s going to be filled with revisions and other meetings.

One of the outcomes of this meeting is that I have to fix one of my own paintings. I just didn’t have the mental capacity to work on it today, so I left it for tomorrow and opened up some assets from our library that needed new versions.

By five I was out for the day. I’d had enough. I went down to the kitchen and retrieved the Ziplock bag of marinated chicken. Our stovetop came with one of those removable grills, so I heated that up and carefully laid the chicken across the grill. It sizzled immediately. There is something so satisfying to a grilling piece of food.

I had so much chicken to cook that I had to do it in multiple batches. Each batch took about ten to fifteen minutes, and about twenty-five minutes in total. I used my propane torch to add an extra amount of blackened sear to simulate cooking over a real fire. This is an Indian recipe after all, so it would have traditionally been cooked in a tandoor.

I let the chicken cool in a bowl, and staring at the used grill, I remembered why I stopped using it for this recipe. The clean up on the cast iron is a bit of a pain. I scrubbed at it under hot water for a bit and then left it to soak in the sink to loosen up the rest of the burnt on chicken and marinade sauce.

Robyn came down and I took a rest on the back deck sofa while she watered all the plants in the front and the back. When she was done we both sat in the back, occasionally talking or napping. She was just killing time before she had to leave for her second job and I was using the time to recharge my batteries. It sure felt like I was running on low.

Kiddo #1 left to go on a hot date. I think she uses one of those online dating apps. This is her second date this week. The doorbell cam caught a little bounce in her step on the way out the door. I think she might be excited about this date. I’ll all about it from Robyn later I am sure.

Grilling the chicken was one of the three things I wanted to get done tonight. The second was to mount the cargo box to the roof of the car, but Robyn has my car to go to work. It was something that can be done tomorrow, so no big deal.

The third thing, and maybe more time sensitive than the roof rack was to shave me head. Since I am going into work tomorrow, I thought I should at least try to make myself look presentable.

Work is having a special event at lunch to show one of the old shows we worked on and that was put into the Warner Bros. vault, never to be seen by the general public ever again. There are food and prizes. And it will be great to see an episode or two over lunch.

The commute in will also provide me with a little extra time to do some writing and make the evening session less of an impossible task.

And anything that helps with my word count for the next few days is a God send.

Robyn left for work and I jumped upstairs to take care of the hair. I have a battery-operated trimmer that can be used with water. It’s less powerful than my last trimmer, but it gets the job done. Still cheaper than going to a barber every two weeks. The thing pays for itself in no time and I can get a trim anytime I want, because I know the barber and he’s a great guy. Handsome too.

With that done it was time to put down some words onto the digital paper. I’d written a little over three hundred words just before lunch while waiting for an answer I needed to proceed. It felt good to use that down time for something that would ultimately help future me.

I view the time that Robyn is away at her job in the same fashion. I try to get as many words as I can in the time she’s gone. It’s like turning it into a game. It’s not eight PM, so I expect her to return shortly. But in that time, I did my own hair cut and wrote about fourteen hundred words. I count that as a win.

But having said that, I still have just over four thousand words left to write this evening. And that is still a daunting number and at least four hours of writing.

I’ve seen a few more news broadcasts that are opening questioning Trumps mental capacity after a few of his recent speeches left even some of his staunch supporters scratching their heads.

I saw clip of a senator asking the speaker of the house to do something about the president because they could all see that something wasn’t right with him lately. That’s putting it lightly I’d say. He does seem to be saying some pretty weird shit at all the wrong times. And even though we have become used to his antics, it’s fair to say that if any other president said what he is saying now, his own party would impeach him and get him off the public stage before he ruined the party’s chances at the next election.

But, if you’ve spent the last few years bending the knee and making excuses for the man, it might be hard to just see the truth and do anything about it. It will be interesting to see what happens after all the mid-term elections happen and see if the Democrats can win back the house. But the consensus seems to be that people are getting tired of his antics and not delivering on any of his promises.

He just said he might use the military to bomb all the bridges and power plants in Iran if they didn’t agree to his demands by eight PM. We could wake up tomorrow to another disaster. And yet, it’s been noted that the US depleted a lot of its smart weapon arsenal in the first few days of the offensive when this all started months ago.

I’m sure the manufactures of all those weapons systems are going to have an amazing fiscal year. As well as anyone who invested in their stocks.

John Oliver was going over how much money Trump has made and that the majority of their wealth now comes from the crypto market. They launched their own meme coins, one for Trump senior and one for Melania as well as a financial institution that handles crypto. Both coins basically went to zero not long after their launches. But investing in the coins or on their platform is basically a way to bribe the president of the United States. And that is a bit alarming. Okay, it’s really alarming. It’s downright terrifying.

And in the show, Oliver pointed to the many coinciednees when a person made a large purchase or deposit to the platform and then either received a pardon or had their cases dismissed or delayed by the justice department.  There are too many of these events to be coincidental.

Robyn returned from her work, and I sneaked in another hundred words in that time. She offered to make us breakfast for dinner and I wasn’t about to say no. Eggs, bacon, and toast.

Yummy!

I have some left over Scottish potato scones from the other day, so I snuck one into the pan with the bacon. The dinner for breakfast hit the spot and it might have been the only real food I had today other than a pickled egg and some toasted malt bread.

I certainly feel a little more pep in my step all of a sudden.

And the cherry on top is the cup of tea she made me right after wards.

What a gal. What a wonderful wife!

I’ve managed to whittle down my word quota from 5843 to 3500. Not quite halfway, but a whole lot further to the goal than I was a few hours ago.

Turns out not only is kiddo #1 out on a date, but her brother, kiddo #2 is on a date tonight as well. Our two little introverts are out there being social in a romantic way. I never thought that this day would come. They have been so anti relationship for most of their lives, it’s cute to see them out in the real-world hustling for love.

We may get some grandkids one day after all.

I joined Robyn back upstairs in our room to continue writing. Thinking the change in venue might be good for me. I can noodle away on this while she watches a show or reads her book. The keyboard on my laptop s very quiet and one of the reasons I bought this model. I will sad when I have to replace this with a keyboard that feels less premium. I think Lenovo stopped making this type of keyboard some years ago. Pitty, because it was so well loved.

One of our friends, who is also in the animation business just go another contract. It’s great to hear that people are getting hired again even if it’s still a trickle. This guy is another thirty plus year career working, so it great that we aren’t losing his knowledge to the lack of work. I hope this trend continues and people start to get back to work.

And the best part is that he got a job just around the corner form our studio and is in fact owned by the company that used to own our animation company.

Robyn put on Netflix’s while I continued to write. It was a documentary about prediction markets. I keep looking over at because it’s such an interesting topic. You can basically bet on anything using these platforms. It’s a way around illegal sports betting. Calling it speculation makes it more like buying stocks.

And this goes back to Trump whose two sons are advisors to the two top prediction market companies. And now the regulations around these markets are now being loosened.

All the big names in these markets look like guys who can’t get dates. But damn, they are making billions.

An update on my sore gums.

I’ve been extremely careful to eat on the right side of my mouth all day. It felt like the gum injury flared up just a little earlier today, but nothing like the debilitating way it did yesterday. I think being extra careful made a big difference today and I am hoping it will be nothing but a memory by the end of the week.

Kiddo #1 asked about how many cars we would be taking to the cottage. We explained that if we took two cars she and her brother would have to pay for the gas as we couldn’t afford it due to our financial situation and the possibility of Robyn going back to school in September.

Whether or not she was phased by that I couldn’t tell. I think she is waiting to see if her brother is willing to cough up half the gas money. The big incentive for them is to be able to listen to their own music, very loudly while singing along. One of them is tone deaf and the other has a pretty good singing voice.

The funny part to me, is that they think I don’t like listening to music, which is completely wrong of course. I’ll have music on the whole ride. And they also think my music isn’t very good, but a lot of what they listen to is on my own playlists.

And if Robyn is my passenger, we will be listening to her playlist which has most of the songs that the kids have in their lists. It’s all a bit of a misconception, but I don’t feel the need to correct them because if we bring two cars, we can take more supplies. Namely, I can bring more things to the cottage.

One of the big items I’d like to bring is my e-scooter. It would be great to take it out for a spin on the back roads near the cottage. It also allows us to bring more groceries from home which will save Robyn and us money. The kids taking and paying for the second car is a win-win for us.

My writing teacher was reminiscing about one of his writing friends, Robert Sheckely. who they published in their own magazine many times. He mentioned a story that Sheckley wrote with Harlon Ellison called, “I See A Man Sitting On A Chair, And The Chair Is Biting His Leg.”

What a great title for a story. I have a copy of that story somewhere, and I read it back in November and enjoyed it. I had to buy an out of print copy of the book from ABE books.

The point of his post was about how many stories Bob wrote and the fact that he had forgotten about thirty stories he’d written for a radio station. At the time, my writing instructor was very young and couldn’t contemplate a writer forgetting something they wrote. But these days, at the age of seventy-five he now finds himself in the same position. He’s finding bundles of pages of short stories that he’d forgotten he’d written.

Now that I have written over seventy stories in the last two years, I understand how easy it is. When you are starting out, the idea of writing so much that you forget about it was unthinkable. But yes, I’ve forgotten most of things I did last year. That’s not a bad problem to have really.

But it does show that a spreadsheet that lists all your work is a good idea for a prolific writer. And yes, I do have spreadsheet, but it could use some updating with most of things I wrote in 2026.

Robyn brought me a little bowl of M&M’s just now. Did I mention that I was a lucky guy.

After the speculation market documentary, Robyn put on another documentary about the corruption of FIFA. Any organization that exerts some form of power eventually is infiltrated by people who want to game the system. It’s interesting to see it’s start as a kind of gathering of like-minded friends to the change into a business model. They went from a group with no money to a acquiring a sponsorship with Coca Cola. And after that other companies followed, and the money started to flow.

Addidas became a huge sponsor and may have offered bribes to the FIFA president. Or the president may have demanded them. It’s not clear to me.

Eventually, FIFA started making big money. The FIFA executives start living like millionaires with the best cars and houses.

I bought a watch case for my watches the other day. I finally wrangled all my watches into it. It has room for twelve timepieces and there are two spots left. I have to say the case makes the watches look cool. And it will keep them clean and dust free as well as all in one place for once. I put the box upon my dresser. It’s little organization projects like this that make my life a little better.

It does have room for two more watches though…so maybe I’ll need to find a few more. I’ve always wanted one of the simple Timex watches. I think it’s called the Scout. I need to check with a friend at work who wears one to see if it’s the correct model.

I do have a bit of a watch problem. If I had the money, I would have a room full of them. There are so many cool designs out there. One of my favourites in the collection has a kaleidoscope at the centre of it. The watches were made by a company called Ernest Borel and were called cocktail watches. They were designed to be conversation pieces for people while having, well, cocktails. The were mesmerizing Swiss made chronographs built in the nineteen fifties and sixties.

The only problem with a watch from the fifties is that the watch sizes were much smaller back in those days. In fact, in twenty twenty-six, a men’s Borel watch looks like a lady’s watch. Men’s watch dials have significantly increased in size over the last seventy-five years.

A while ago, I got into making leather goods and I made a template for a new strap for my Borel watch. The idea I had was to give it a new strap that made it look bigger that it was. The strap design is called a Bund strap and was used by pilots and ground troops in World War II. For the pilots flying bombers the internal temperatures inside the planes could drop to freezing cold temperatures. Belly gunners were getting frost bite from having to piss in their flight suits. Imagine a piece of steal strapped to your wrist.

Conversely, in dessert operations, having a hot piece of metal strapped to your wrist could actually burn your skin. A thick and wider strap was one of the ways they were able to combat those issues.

Anyway, I thought it would work well for my Borel, but the problem I ran into was that the straps need to be much longer than any off the shelf brand because the dial is so much smaller than modern watches. And I have very wide wrists that routinely max out most watch bands. Maybe one day I will finish it. Or get tired of it and pay someone on Etsy to make me one.

It’s been a while since I did any of my other hobbies since taking my writing more seriously. I have large bottles of mead that need to be decanted into individual bottles and corked. I have tonnes of leather making gear and hides to make things with, but no time to make anything.

I am supposed to make two or three leather belts for friends. I haven’t got all the leather to make belts and when I agreed to make them, I didn’t think I was going to be back at work anytime soon. And then I got the call the return to work and all my free time vanished.

Kiddo #1 returned from her date and started asking about love. Did Robyn love me more than her? Was that the kind of love she was looking for? Someone to love more than her mother? I was cute to see her questioning it all. I suggested she was taking things to seriously. That dating was all about finding someone who wanted to see again and then seeing if they are someone who you want to be around more often and eventually all the time. Worrying about love during the dating process is getting the horse before the cart.

I saw an article about Tim Horton’s, our beloved Canadian Donut Shop, new partnership with the Harry Potter series. The chain is selling Potter themed donuts and merchandise in Potter themed donut boxes. It comes as no surprise that the people taking issue are from the 2SLGBTQ+ community and their allies. They don’t have a problem with the series so much as with the beliefs of the author, J.K. Rowling.

Many people belief she has taken an anti-trans position, while she denies it and calls herself a feminist.

Some Canadians think Tim Hortons is known for representing Canadian values and question whether this deal is sending their customers the wrong message.

I’m not convinced that Rowling hates any particular group of people. And I think more people love Harry Potter than hate J.K. Rowling. It will be interesting to see how this will pay out in the coming weeks.

As this FIFA documentary plays in the background the degree to which things were corrupted is staggering. No wonder they got investigated. When you make some odd decisions on who gets the FIFA world cup championships people are going to wonder how a particular country was chosen. It was the decision against the US in favour of Qatar that made people question how the decision was made. The temperatures alone would be well above hundred and five during the time the games would be going on. One thing I didn’t consider, something that the FIFA report did look into was how hot it would be for the workers who need to build all the stadiums and hotels. Quatar didn’t have any stadiums at the time of their winning bid or hotels for the players and tourists. You’d have to bribe someone to get that bid!

Quatar received a large proportion of the backlash that maybe should have been levied towards the FIFA council.

It’s just past eleven thirty and I still have about fourteen hundred words left to write. Not too bad. It was much later in the evening when I was at this point last night. Getting that writing done earlier in the day sure does make a big difference in how I feel while writing. Last night I was running on fumes. I kept going purely on the desire not to fail. I didn’t want to give up.

Not that I can stay up too late tonight with a seven AM alarm set for tomorrow. Still, I am in better shape tonight than I was yesterday at this time. Praise be!

I have friend who has always thought of himself as the smartest person in the room. We know this because he is always telling us that in many different ways. I suspect he has spent most of his life wondering why all his dumb friends seem to be doing much better in the game of life than him. Whether it’s relationships, property, travel, financial descisions or job prospects he always seems to fall flat.

Recently, I was shown a post he copied to his Facebook account which had a picture of a kid pushing against a school door that had a sign saying “Pull.” Over top, text read: Smart. Not Wise.

Above this he wrote, “How I’ve felt most of my life being a ‘gifted’ kid.

This gave me a chuckle.

Not matter how ridiculous a decision he makes, the need to hold onto the self monikered “Gifted,” or “Smart,” is always there. It took my years to realize that being “The Smart Kid,” was how he identified himself. So much so that he can’t see that he was never that particularly special or gifted. At best he was like the rest of us. Average.

Nothing wrong with being average. You can do a lot with average. It’s what I am on my best day. I never thought of myself as one thing or the other. I was just me. So, I never needed to construct a false world like he did. Both his parents were in the educational sector, so maybe that had something to do with the desire to be the smart one.

This friend is the same age as me and I guess I find it odd that it has taken him this long to come to this conclusion, even if he guilds it with the false “Gifted” attribute. I mean, we, his lifelong friends, have been telling him this his whole life. But I guess we were too stupid to listen to.

I bring this up because this friend is also an aspirant professional writer. He’s been working on the same novel for over fifteen years. His personae’s attachment to be gifted also extends to being a writer. And I often thing how important it is to not have too much ego about writing or your work. Ego is the silent killer of writers. It creates all the deep dark fears about failure and sells you the tale that your writing is precious and important.

And once you start thinking that way, writing anything becomes an act of self torture. You might be able to last for a few years that way, but eventually it will get you.

I guess what I am saying, is that I use my friend as a what not to do example. I like to think of myself as a creative. It’s less constricting than saying I am a this or that. And the truth is all of us are creators in our own way, whether is making food, sparkling spreadsheets or memorable goals.

I hope my friend eventually stops labelling himself as the smart gifted writer without any wisdom. Be a creator my friend and drop the overinflated ego in a deep well.

I can say all this here because he’ll never read my blog.

Yesterday, I was talking to my supervisor, and she told me you can set Do Not Disturb on the iPhone using a schedule. I had been under the impression that you had to do it manually from the lock screen or one of the swipe-down menus. Imagine my joy at this discovery. I hate getting messages about stupid things after eleven o’clock at night or even worse at five or six in the morning. Now only the people in my favourites list can disturb my sleep with silly memes, dumb questions or links to videos that I will never watch.

I don’t need my feed filled with your newest obsession thank you very much.

I think this new setting is going to help me sleep a lot better in the coming days.

I’ve written in three different locations today. The first was in my office studio, the second was in the bedroom and the third was in the living room while sitting on the couch. I really like the individual sessions. Writing in different spots seems to be good for my back as well. Right now, I have moved back down to the living room, so I don’t disturb my sleeping wife. It’s so quiet down here right now, which for me is weird because I associate this room with being too noisy.

Anyone talking or making something in the kitchen renders the tv unwatchable in this room. The sound just carries and we do have some very loud people that live here. I’m sitting here with the room lit in a warm glow from a single standing lamp. The rest of the house is dark, and the only noise is the sound of the air conditioner running in the basement.

It’s a tad bit romantic, in the platonic sense.

I just poured myself a glass of tart cherry juice to help with falling asleep after I finish up here with my writing. But it. has always struck me that the juice was a bit too acidic. I could feel my gums receding with each sip of the cherry nectar. Then it occurred to me that I had an open bottle of mineral water in the fridge and the two might go well together. I reckoned it had to taste better than those flavoured waters on the market. A fifty-fifty mix goes together really well, and I think that will be the way I drink my cherry juice going forward.

I also found the last two slivers of Laura’s lemon loaf in the fridge which is making for a great midnight snack.

Tomorrow is going to filled with a great deal of revision work and it’s likely going to make me sad. I have a bunch of spiky tree branches to paint for our library that the painters use as well as revising one of my own paintings.

I am looking forward to the Final Space showing, getting a breakfast sandwich from Au Pain Dore and getting in some writing time while on the train. Three lofty goals for the morrow.

When I get home my cottage goal will be to mount the cargo carrier to my roof rack. The I may pick out a few novels to bring with me to the cottage. Maybe see what series I can download onto my iPad in case I need some easy entertainment on a rainy day.

Well, it’s been another real slog of a day. My gums are feeling a little better and I am feeling more confident about being able to make the word count quota by the end of the month after tonight’s and last night’s sessions. It could still go off the rails at any moment, but for now I am feeling good about getting to the finish line.

Not giving into the desire to quit has been the key for me so far. Something I need to remember at the beginning of the month when the daily quota resets to 2026 words per day. A number that should be easy to hit after writing marathon sessions like this week.

Anyway, time to hit the sack.

Until tomorrow.